Learn To Read Your Partners
Sedreana Saldana
Devin Miller
The Inventive Journey Podcast for Entrepreneurs
7/23/2021
Learn To Read Your Partners
The Inventive Journey
Starting and growing a business is a journey. On The Inventive Journey, your host, Devin Miller walks with startups along their different journeys startups take to success (or failure). You also get to hear from featured guests, such as venture firms and angel investors, that provide insight on the paths to a successful inventive journey.
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um yeah if that's what we i will go over with people in the flirt coaching is if you know how to read really read your partners whether it's your business partner or your life partners or potential life partners you know how to read what lights them up what doesn't then you can go with that and you can choose better [Music] partners hey everyone this is devin miller here with another episode of the inventive journey i'm your host devin miller the serial entrepreneur that's grown several startups and the seven and eight figure businesses as well the founder and ceo of miller ip law where we help start us in small businesses with our patents and trademark you never ever need help with yours just go to strategymeeting.com and grab some time with us to chat now today we have another great guest on the podcast adriana um so it was a brief introduction cedriana um what is from or from austin texas went to school at university of texas got a bachelor's in social work and did social work for about five years um before moving to l.a to do acting and met someone there um had a kid took uh or took her out of acting and then went back to talk to work for a bit of time didn't like it too many restrictions not enough money moved back to texas to do something else um and then uh in 2011 founded they are being a business coach and gave some uh their coaching on that and then uh took some coaching classes took a break from that for a bit of time came back to it and that will kind of lead up to where he's doing that today where he's the the self-proclaimed flirting coach so with that much is an introduction welcome on the podcast you took some good notes that's right well i give kind of a quick walkthrough of your journey and kind of you know the high level overview but why don't you take us uh back in time a bit uh um growing up in austin and going to the university in texas and how your journey started there ooh backing time i like that but i'm more excited about the future oh my gosh so you know having a child really really um made me realize how much time is so valuable free and freedom um so i did have a job for a year and a half throughout my son's childhood and he's now 11. and because i had to drop him off and leave him for eight nine hours of the day i was like that's not fun i want to be the one having fun with him and um so that kind of like really motivated me to check out what being in business for yourself was all about and but before we dive into that and we'll definitely get to that part of the journey why don't you take us back and leave a bit when your journey originally started because i think you started out in social work right oh well yeah i do have a degree in social work from ut so i've always been curious about how to strengthen communities and help people and now with the coaching i totally see how that's such a good fit because it's all about transforming people and um just like you can't tickle yourself my coach is always telling me you can't tickle yourself so but not in that accident but yes you can you just it doesn't tickle you you have to have somebody there that's giving you feedback or seeing what lights you up um guiding you mentoring you loving on you appreciating you all those good things and then that's when we can start to see more of ourselves through that kind of interaction so yes i i do have a social work background and um that's why i did that i think for about you got your degree and did it for about five years if i remember when we chatted about five years not long he did that for five years and then what made you decide to switch gears or to lead social work so to speak and go to la and get into acting with the kind of just the dream he always had or an opportunity or just wanted to change or kind of want me to that part of your journey yeah through the program you know back then i wasn't in this free agent entrepreneurship program um at sage university but now that i've been taking classes for years and we'll continue to take them because it's studying business and human dynamics and communication and coaching and salesmanship it's that's what they specialize and there's no way i can ever get enough of practice and learning and unlearning of in those topics so what what they say which makes total sense like here i am i got a degree in social work but then i'm gonna do acting you know as you can tell i'm very animated i love to entertain love love it if i can raise somebody's energy or vibe make them laugh so here i have a social work degree i worked at a as a case manager for a year and a half and then on the other hand i was wanting to go to la and off i went and that's because our brains they need two at least two projects one for the creative side and the other one for the logical side right so the the professional job would satisfy that side but the other part of me the one the part that is probably a little bit dominant of wanting to have fun and just be playful well i listened to that part and so that's why i went to l.a just to explore acting i loved it ever since i was a little kid and that's another big clue guys and gals is what you love to do as a little kid is a big piece of your puzzle or some of the things and one of the things that i loved was just making my brother and sister be in shows and perform with me for my family so i loved acting and um and it still was there and it still is there and now i get to and what we learn in business is that we have to act we have to put on different characters especially if we have as a free agent entrepreneur you have multiple projects not just one sometimes not just two but i know my partners have a hundred projects going on and i'm about to add a third big one and i think i'm capping it at that because i mean because they're just all three of them are just to me just huge things to do and huge projects and um so that's kind of why so you know and i think i get that in the sense you know there and i i do agree there's kind of that that tagging pulled a lot of people if you have a creative side you want a creative outlet you also have kind of more of a logical and kind of you know just better more operational side and so to have that balance of that mixture definitely makes life a lot more enjoyable and so you know you start out with social work which was more operational and then you moved out to la to do acting now did you ever get any acting or gigs if you ever or how did that go and i think at some point you had you know you had a kid in the middle of that so yeah that phase of the journey goes you're trying to get into acting oh yeah so i i only really pursued it for two and a half years out there and then after that that's when i got pregnant and i got a professional social work job as a case manager in compton and watts so that was kind of cool to explore those areas because you know they they're kind of famous in a way and um yeah that was an adventure and so yeah i only really pursued it for two and a half years but in those two and a half years i did visit every major set as an extra i did a lot of extra work just to be able to get on the sets and and see how things were done it was so much fun and um i did you know i did a couple of things like i was um a double for that movie red eye where i got to work with wes craven that was fun you know so there are some some some bigger things sprinkled in there and and but now with with the whole business and what we're learning is just like business is going all towards celebration and um entertainment and recreation like how how we can have fun with others because as you know ai is going to take over millions and millions of jobs i mean even yesterday at the airport for the first time i had a robot arm take my coffee order and serve it the way i wanted it and you know put it in a vending machine and i was like wow i was like there you go so yes it's all so like i said the business is putting on different cats putting on different characters so i have the director of my nonprofit i just started with a partner of austin family housing i'm the director of that i have all the vision for it and i'm gonna before we dive in we'll absolutely dive into where you're at today but just uh maybe just backfilling that journey just a bit more and i've been staying with the doing the acting so you did acting for about two and a half years you have the kid now what what made you decide to move back to texas because i think that you did that oh yes i love how you're so curious about the acting and you pre you keep bringing it back there yes so i had the baby and um my family was here in texas i'm in austin and i just felt like you know i want to move back and it's more i guess you could say family-friendly family-oriented oriented here in austin and more affordable that was of course 11 years ago and since then it's gone up but still mit right now you austin has the hottest market in the nation and so many people from california are moving here i mean in groves but you know back 11 12 years ago i moved back with a baby and um yeah just uh family was here and every i mean people love austin and so i just decided to kind of um this be my stable place family really helps a lot when it comes to raising a baby raising a family to have family around you so now as you're moving back to texas you know how did you decide what you wanted to do next uh go back into social working i think you got into business coaching but kind of how did you say okay tried acting for a bit of time did a whole bunch of extras now i'm back into texas raising a kid now i'm trying to decide what to do with the next phase of why what did you kind of land on well i landed on my first business coach so i had a business coach in 2011 my first one ever um business slash life slash communication all those three major areas of life so she was able to really help me see myself more and like put together the cedriana puzzle because everybody has their own puzzle and there's so many pieces and each piece is so intricate um so one of the pieces is acting one of the pieces of social work other piece this that this that you kind of just this program is very unique it's the only one in the whole wide world that really sees who you are doesn't give advice um opinions about what you oh yeah i think you should do this no all we do or all they do is give feedback and so now fast forward to all this coaching and classes um um i'm just a good flirt so so that's that's why i i decided and along with i have a team of flirt coaches we there's a team of three of us right now and we we started a youtube channel to put fun scenarios out there it's two got two women and one guy and um so we're all coaches and then we we started this youtube channel to just kind of share of how how people are let's say not lighting each other up when it comes to either dating or being in a relationship so my mentor gave me that feedback that i'm just super playful and flirty and this would be a good route to go in as far as in the coaching avenue because in coaching in the realm of coaching you can have business coach life coach communication coach you know all these different categories you can have and i kind of just picked that one because that was the one that fit me them the best you know is especially now with all the tech and the guys i mean and gals in tech where they're just so used to just sitting in front of a computer and doing their work or in front of their phones texting it's it's a really there's a need out there for social and conversational skills that we're losing and have lost some you know yeah one one question on that because i definitely get you know especially if you're getting into a lot more social media a lot less facebook you know face-to-face interactions and that's only been exacerbated by covet and you have other you know drawbacks you know i went to i went into engineering had a you know had a lot of classmates that they were incredibly smart and they lack social skills so i get from the people needing to have that you know almost that coaching or that training or that experience as to how to interact better with people definitely makes sense but now how do you go about actually building a business around that there's a difference between recognizing that you know that people may need those skills versus going out and actually saying hey you lack social skills let me help you to learn how to communicate with people to flirt or to be able to make connections and establish relationships seems like it's a bit of a jump because either one you'll end up insulting people because they think they're a good communicator or you know even if they're not or two they're not going to say that it's a big enough problem it's also how do you kind of overcome that hurdle or kind of establish a business to where people will be hiring you yeah well good good question because of course i've already heard from guys oh i know how to get a woman if i want one you know so basically what we're looking for is that one in a hundred or maybe two and a hundred of people who are going to be curious and open just like my myself i was curious and open to to have this session with this coach of like what more could there be for me you know so that's the main thing is we're just looking for the curious ones and it's not going to be the majority you know and so we just keep that in mind then we also give feedback like oh how would you like it's like uh playing music you know you can i played the flute you can play one note or two notes but what if you really knew how to play so many more notes and really explore what other kind of music you could make right so it's just it's just looking for the people who are curious and open and know that hey maybe i could learn something or unlearn and from this person just like i can learn something from you you could learn something from me i mean everybody has their their things that they're good at so you might as well um if you're curious check it out right we always offer sample sessions so they can get a flavor a taste of what it's about but i mean gosh it seems like and and did that remind me so when did you kind of establish that as a business or you know the flirting coach and helping people establish your establishment communicate how long ago was that well i just this year decided that i would like to call myself a flirt coach after going on six seven years of these coaching classes you know i thought well it's about time it's about time to put all this training into use and but it's just for me um calling myself a life coach wasn't lighting me up i don't know why um but flirt coach now that lights me up and so it was that was a huge piece so finding that piece of just like oh let's just label you something else that fits more of your personality so that when i go and i'm interacting with people and i say i'm a flirt coach it lights me up so much to just try to call myself like something a title that i just wasn't lighting up for for whatever reason i don't even want to try to understand why i wasn't lighting up on that you know title but that's that was a one of the main things so yeah and then with the coaching team that i have that i work with um what we could also do and we haven't we started the youtube channel but we want to also start getting in to calling tech companies and offering our social and conversational skills training for maybe they'd like to hire us as a team to come in and whether coming in in person or on zoom where we could offer this fun training to their employees so there's that avenue that we can go on with the team um no and it sounds like you know things of uh as you kind of found the you know there's a lot of life coaches out there there's a lot of people that are trying to break into coaching and to find your niche and kind of where you can distinguish yourself and how you can make the biggest impact is kind of where over a period of time you finally be able to kind of hone in on that so that sounds like it's an exciting place to be so kind of with that in mind as we've now kind of walked through a bit of your journey how you got to where you're at to where you're at today what you're doing a bit today i always have two questions at the end of each podcast that we'll jump to uh now so the first question i always ask is along your journey what was your worst business decision and what did you learn from it oh yeah those questions the worst business decision for me there are no worst business decisions because it's all about trying things um falling down lifting yourself up okay that didn't work oh okay oh yeah that person you know what was the decision where you fell down and had to lift yourself back up in other words because i would you know i would argue slightly in the sense that if you go out and you spend let's say you had a hundred million dollars and you went out and spent 100 billion dollars lost every penny you may learn a good thing you probably still wouldn't go make the same decision that you lost 100 million dollars if you could do it over again so there's still things that while you have an ability to learn from are still things that if you could do over again or you could do it differently you probably would so that's kind of how i define it as what is something that you did fall down from that you had to that you did pick yourself up from and learn from um gosh like i said i really am of the mindset that everything happens the way it's meant to happen i mean like you know everything every no matter how hard it is to go through so i don't even i can't even answer that that i mean of course everybody has their stories and their tough times in life that they've gone through like heartaches or um financial eggs but it's all i don't know i just i don't feel like um there's an answer to that question one last time we'll see if we can listen and ask this what is a time where it's been a difficult business time that you had that you learned something from yeah i mean of course as entrepreneurs it's not easy of course it's not easy to um you know but it's so much fun it's so much fun and i you know there's been as a single mom you know i've been single mom for 11 years um there's been so many times throughout the years of this process that i would go and i would slide my credit card and it would get declined but oh well there's not enough money in the account for that today i mean so yeah there's those times but still look how much it's lighting me up and you know why because no matter what it's all about the freedom for me about that freedom of being able to do what you want to do how earn money how you want to earn money who you want to work with or play with as we we like to say um so yeah i mean of course there's all those there's those times but you know that's just part of what entrepreneurship is and then i'll give that a half answer i still know that we ever actually got a full answer there but we'll give at least a half attempt so well at least it's making you smile so now i'll give the second or second question i asked and this one i think you should be able to answer but we'll give it a try which is if you're talking to someone that's just getting into a startup for small business what would be the one piece of advice you give them oh gosh learn how to read your partners because that's one thing i i will focus on in uh flirty and flirt coaching and i'm kind of i don't know if you can see i'm a little distracted i have a cat that's uh in the back of my chair if your cat pops up over here you'll know why but um yeah if that's what we i will go over with people in the flirt coaching is if you know how to read really read your partners whether it's your business partner or your life partners or potential life partners you know how to read what lights them up what doesn't then you can go with that and you can choose better partners so it's all about just uh cutting people from the team while you're recruiting like you're just looking for your your team player whether it's in business or in life and not to get too attached to what even if this person looks like the perfect one but if you really know how to read that potential partner and you know how to see if this is if they're going to be good collaborators then you can either cut them or recruit them no and i think that there is you know i think there's a difference a lot of people think that you know i've very seldom you ever meet someone that says i'm not good at reading people i think everybody thinks that they're good at reading people now in reality i think some people may be good at reading people a lot of people are terrible reading people and there's even been some interesting studies to to how often people are mystery people so i think that there is that town that's in that skill and if you can learn to develop it and learn how to both understand where people at have empathy read them make sure that you know that you can communicate well with them that they're on the same page you can address their concerns all of those can definitely make you a you know a stronger and better business person so definitely agree with that piece of advice well as people if they want to as we wrap up the podcast so people want to reach out to you they want to be a client they want to be a customer they want to er or have you as their floor coach they want to be an employee they want to be an investor in your business if you're looking for investors they want to be your next best friend any or all of the above if um what's the best way to reach out to you contact you or find out more oh yes well thank you yeah i like that if friends to partners to investors i mean to yes uh i guess my phone number do you do you want me to say it out loud okay however you wanna however you want them to connect up with you uh all 512-917-3957 well i definitely encourage people to reach out make that uh make that connection and see on any any or all the above um or how or how you guys can engage and explore things so now with that thank you again for uh coming out of the podcast it's been fun it's been a pleasure now for all of you that are listeners if you have your own journey to tell and you'd like to be a guest on the podcast feel free to go to inventiveguest.com apply to be on the show do more things as uh listeners want to make sure to click subscribe in your podcast players so you know when all of our awesome episodes come out and do leave us a review so everyone else can find out about all of our awesome episodes and last but not least if you ever need help with patents trademarks or anything else feel free to reach out just go to strategymeeting.com grab some time with us to chat well thank you again for coming on the podcast it's been a pleasure and wish the next leg of your journey even better than the last oh thank you devon you
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